Like a magpie I've bought a lot of pedals over the years and sold very few so now I have a lot of pedals in the house and would rather downsize. I'm a home noodler.
To give you an example I've got all 3 big box Strymons (Big Sky, Timeline and Mobius) and recently got a Quad Cortex.
The strymons have a lot more options, but the quad cortex is so convenient and easy to use I've already used it a lot more than I used to use the strymons. I've used the cortex standalone and also with 4 cable model with my real amps.
The only downside of the cortex is that it doesn't have every type of delay/verb/mod possible, but in every other way it's probably better. I haven't tested sound quality back to back though.
I think the obvious answer is to sell the strymons, but is there anything I'm going to regret?
(I've also got an HXFX and a Plethora X5, plus a few analog variants, in case you are worried I don't have enough options)
Who's downsized and lived with no regrets? or the opposite?
Comments
Boss ME-50, for 'proper' band use where I'm likely to need to tweak stuff, and GT-1 for travelling light, open mics etc where I might to have to plug into the PA.
I did test the sound quality back to back between the ME-50 and my analogue pedalboard, carefully with an A/B loop switcher. The ME-50 won - most of the sounds were basically indistinguishable, and for many the ME-50 actually sounded better. Really... even for some of the overdrive/distortion models. The only ones it really didn't were fuzz, octaver and analogue delay.
So I sold off my pedalboard. I've kept a small number of pedals - a couple of favourite overdrive and distortions, a couple of fuzzes, and I've just acquired a DM-3W, but I'm unlikely to use them live unless they're literally the only effects I need. (I take just a fuzz for playing bass in my garage/punk band.)
I doubt I'll ever have a pedalboard again. The multi-FX method is more flexible, more convenient, much smaller and lighter (for an equivalent number of effects), less hassle and also a lot cheaper.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
How does the ME25, the smaller version cope? Just for home use.
At a quick look it's what I would hate in a multi-FX though - patch changes only, no ability to turn on and off individual effects. I never change patches on the fly, only turn effects on and off like on an analogue pedalboard - the ME-50 does that in 'manual' mode, and I've reprogrammed the footswitches on the GT-1 to do it as well.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I do have an HX Stomp on my board, and I’m happy with the amp sounds I can get with it when not using my actual amp, but this runs short on DSP for some situations.
I’m currently considering selling off some stuff I don’t use and either getting the QC or full-fat Helix for festival/further afield gigs where it would make more sense to travel light.
Cake and eat it. No need for either/ or.
In my heart I know that a multifx is cheaper, lighter, more convenient to transport, easy to backup and replace etc but in my head I hate messing with menus and can't reconcile having 1000s sounds yet I only use 3.
I'm still reading reviews of the quad cortex though just in case....
I’m sure there are other multi-FX with this kind of ease of use too.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Works for me. Pitch shift not so good, but anything modulation, reverb, wierd noises ...
So far, as someone who suffers with option paralysis it seems to work how I hoped it would.
https://i.imgur.com/CcHqYOR.jpg
Every one of those sounded great; the VG-8 and (even more so) the Helix gave me the flexibility and control I want. The Helix interface is nicely flat and shallow too.